In the development of pharmaceutical products to be used in medical examination or treatment of diseases of human beings, in order to examine in advance how the drug influences human bodies, the drugs need to be administered to animals to confirm their efficacy.
As such laboratory animals, mice, rats, dogs, rabbits, monkeys and many other animals are used. However, in order to examine the efficacy of the drugs to be administered to human beings most accurately, the use of primates (hereinafter referred to as “monkeys”) is the most optimal.
In order to perform oral administration, transnasal intragastric administration, or intravenous injections of drugs to a monkey, to collect blood therefrom, to examine the state of pupils thereof, or to hold the head thereof in case of need, it is necessary to restrain the monkey so that the monkey cannot move freely. Thus, as a restraint device which restricts the movement of the monkey and facilitates work, a restraint device as shown in Patent Documents 1 to 3 has been proposed.
Each of these restraint devices is a device into which a monkey is transferred from a home cage for keeping the monkey, and with which each of the above-described operations is to be performed in that state.
This type of restraint device is usually provided with a shutter that can be freely opened and closed on its rear surface side, and hooks for hooking and fixing the restraint device on the front of the home cage is also provided on the same rear surface side.
This type of restraint device is usually used as follows. That is, the restraint device is fixed by the hooks so that the shutter matches the door that can be freely opened and closed on the front surface of the home cage. Then, the home cage door and the shutter are opened at the same time, the monkey is forced into the restraint device and then, the shutter is closed so that transfer of the monkey to the restraint device is completed.
After the monkey is transferred into this restraint device, a partition wall to which operation handles are connected is pushed rearward, and while the monkey is forced rearward so as to restricts its movement, an intended treatment is performed. Moreover, depending on the purpose of the treatment, limbs of the monkey are pulled out frontward through a lattice of the partition wall and tied to the operation handles or the like with bands or the like so as to restricts their movement.